Till Death Comes to Part
by LittleMaggie
Summary: A Post-Hogwarts story about Neville Longbottom that will tap into the character of Death from Sandman. Neville's grandmother has died, but Death comes to tell Neville otherwise... and a great conspiracy of fate begins! Ch.2
1. Deadly Intervention

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Author's Note: This story is dedicated to Gary Skinner because he must have read a good deal of my stories now, and I feel sorry for all the computer radiation he must have absorbed on my account. He did offer quite a few lovely ideas, and so here I combine a few of them.

Here it is. A Post-Hogwarts story about Neville Longbottom that will lightly tap into the character of Death from Sandman, which belongs to Neil Gaiman. However, I don't want to copy the whole character per se, I want to take the idea of personifying death and leave it at that, sort of let Death become a character of my own in this story. Hence, I will only take the main idea, but I won't take on the history of the _real _Death from Sandman. Does that make sense?

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Chapter One

Neville Longbottom stepped into the unemployment office with a grim little smile playing on his face. His grandmother had told him, God rest her soul, that he should never let them see him cry. He had failed at this many times, of course, throughout his life. People had seen him break down and weep far more times than he could count on his fingers. Today, though, he felt he had taken one defeat too many, and he was willing to do something about it.

Perhaps things haven't gone as well with the wizarding world after Voldemort had been eliminated. Tough times came afterwards – homes and families were destroyed, great witches and wizards had died. Muggles had been killed, though elaborate cover-ups had been taken up to preserve the secret world of magic. The wizard world had been split though, Pro-Voldemort and Anti-Voldemort, and once the war ended the bitter sentiments against one another raged on both sides. The Pro-Voldemort families had suffered the most staggering losses, it seemed, and most, if not all, were now suffocating in debt and misery.

After the war, there had been many changes. Young girls graduated straight from Hogwarts and immediately enlisted as nurses to aid the survivors of the war in the hospitals erected just for victims. People had suffered under numerous curses and hexes, even the Unforgivable ones. Neville had never seen so much worry and misery.

The war was over and it seemed that things could only go up. The upwards slant seemed to be rather shallow though for it had been two years now and things were still shaky. Young people like Neville were already war veterans and yet they couldn't find jobs, they couldn't find money. Quite large numbers of witches and wizards left the world of magic permanently and have embedded themselves in the Muggle world, squashing all their magic and locking it inside. These were dark times.

Neville couldn't leave, though. Not when his grandmother's grave sat, freshly dug, in the orchard behind the family estate. There was too much family honor involved for Neville to quit. He knew that he always had people to support him, that he had a life to carry on.

And yet, as he glanced at dismay at the dozens of people in line at the Hogsmeade Unemployment Office, his stomach fell and his insides seemed to bunch up in worry. He didn't know how he could keep up the Longbottom estate that his grandmother left him and still support his ill mother and father in the mental hospital.

Neville took his place in line.

The line moved slowly, bit by bit. Someone stood behind him, a girl, her red hair flowing down her back in soft waves. He turned and said, " Hello, Ginny."

Ginny smiled in reply.

" Your family too, then?" Neville asked. Neville was surprised, for Harry Potter had been honored for his efforts in the war with a very prestigious position in the Ministry. Neville was sure that Harry would have pulled his good Weasley friends into jobs.

" Oh, no," Ginny exclaimed, " We can surely manage all right, but I'd like to be a nurse."

" A nurse, huh?" Neville looked sad, " You do know it's an awfully demanding job?"

" I know," Ginny nodded, " What about you, Neville?"

" Ever since Gram died, I suppose I can only say I've seen better days," A mist of tears filled his eyes and he added quickly, " I'm lucky though, I've seen worse too."

" I hope they sign you up with a good job," Ginny admitted, " But if anything, Fred and George could always pull you into their Joke Shop business. It's spiraling like mad now. People need a good laugh, you know."

Neville sighed. Poor Ginny, she was really beautiful, but she talked like a wise old woman. The war had done this to everyone. He looked out the window of the Unemployment office at the quickly graying sky. " Another storm's coming," He whispered thoughtfully.

They handed him a slip of paper in an envelope. They had taken it from shelf marked **Males 18-25; **there were no further segregation to jobs other than by age. Neville wanted to keep it a bit of a surprise for himself so he waited until he was across the street and sitting at the wicker table of the restaurant, the rain pattering heavily on the tent-like roof over him.

Neville opened the large yellow envelope and took out the paper, unfolding it from it's simple half-fold. It was a simple enough form to fill out, and fastened to it was the paper that told him the occupation he'd been assigned to. He read it with muted interest – **Baker's apprentice; Good Witch Bakery 7:30 am – 18:00 pm**. Neville folded it up and stuck it back in the envelope, thinking to himself that he'd look it over later.

The rain was taking some sort of hiatus and the raindrops were coming down sparingly now. Neville raced out into the rainy street, but not before he bumped into a little boy handing out newspapers. The little boy looked at Neville quizzically.

" I'm sorry," Neville exclaimed, " I'm so clumsy… here…" Neville pulled out a handful of loose change and handed it to the boy, " Can I have a paper?"

The boy nodded and took the money in exchange for a newspaper.

Neville walked briskly, walking around puddles and avoiding passerby, his eyes embedded on the front-page news. There wasn't much good news there, but at least it was something to read, and it kept his mind off the rain, which was slowly picking up.

After a fifteen-minute walk (he felt he needed the exercise, and he couldn't stand messing up another spell with his clumsy hands) he found himself in front of the Longbottom manor. Manor was perhaps too nice a title to attach to the humble little house, which was far smaller than the others in the neighborhood. It did have a nice plot of land to it though, stretching endlessly behind it, and attached to a grove where the Longbottom ancestors were buried.

Here Neville paused for he saw someone standing just out by the graves looking out at the smoky gray bay. It was a woman with a long black dress on. It was blowing quite threateningly behind her for the wind was rather strong and the rain was slicing like daggers.

" Miss?" Neville called out, unsure, " Are you lost?"

She turned slowly and smiled happily, " Hello, Mr. Longbottom, I've been waiting for you."

" Oh?" Neville looked taken aback for a second. She was a rather pale woman, only a tad shorter than him in stature and slim. She was attractive but not entirely in an earthly way as in a mystical way, as if there was an aura to her, " Are you here from the Ministry?"

" No, not quite," She smiled, showing the white of her teeth, which were just a little whiter than her skin, " I'm here to help you out a bit. Seems there's been a bit of a…" She halted, trying to find the right words, " … mix-up."

" Mix-up?" Neville frowned, " About the job?" He lifted the yellow envelope nervously.

" Actually, about a job of mine. You see, this is about your grandmother's death," The woman put a hand down on Neville's shoulder, " It wasn't quite her time yet."

" I don't understand," Neville paled and swayed on his feet, the ground suddenly tilting rather close to him. Having her touch him had sent some sort of current through his body, not entirely an unpleasant one as an unexpected one. She was from another world, that he knew right off. He stared at her face in surprise. Her lips were painted with black lipstick and she had an Eye of Horus drawn around both eyes. She looked like some of the girls he'd see as he'd take a trip out to the Muggle world, the girls that met in the café and read poems aloud to one another, each poem darker and gloomier than the next. Neville wondered what this woman would want from him.

" You see, sometimes even the most natural of the Earth's forces make mistakes," The woman looked a bit upset with herself, then grinned brightly, " I'm sure you can relate to something like that? When someone you've always trusted in and relied on to make the right decisions suddenly makes a mistake?" She didn't wait for a reply, she just added, " That's quite the way I feel right now."

" I'm sorry," Neville whispered, confused, " But I don't really see what this has to do with me."

" No, I suppose you wouldn't. I have to explain something, then, right away. I am one of those forces. I'm not entirely entitled to make mistakes too often, nor is there much a way that I _can_ make mistakes. This one time, though, a mistake was made."

" I don't understand," Neville exclaimed, " Are you saying you're a… a god of some sort?"

" No," She smiled, " I'm older than the gods. I'm Death."

The breath caught in Neville's throat. He shook his head, " This is ridiculous. Please, I don't need anyone joking around with me like this."

" I can get you your grandmother back," Death said, seeing him turn away, " Please don't go, I don't mean you any particular harm, nor did I come here to annoy you and pressure you in your time of mourning. I want to… to make it go away, you see."

" Why, then?" Neville turned and looked at her, straight in her dark eyes, " Why me? Thousands of great witches and wizards died in the war, and if you ask of me, all of those deaths were mistakes. What makes my… my Gram's death any different?"

Death smiled, " You see, she was connected to our world. She wasn't supposed to die. Not yet, anyway. We needed her. She isn't even _truly_ dead, just lost somewhere in the afterworld."

" Excuse me?" Neville coughed uncomfortably, " Are you trying to tell me that my Gram isn't even dead?"

" No, not quite," Death explained, " She was merely taken. It's all a mistake, really, and it's all my fault."

" How did this happen? And how is my grandmother connected to… to this world of forces, as you say?" Neville demanded, " I'm having a very hard time understanding all this, you know!"

" Let me inside and I'll explain," Death said pleasantly, " It's rather cold out here, you know."

Neville nodded numbly, " You do understand that I'm not really buying your story?" He dug out his keys and then walked with her towards the house.

She replied from behind him, " That's alright. Once I explain everything, you'll understand both the error and why your grandmother means so much to us."

" Alright," Neville sighed, " Please don't expect me to join some weird cult or anything though. I don't know why you need _my _help in any of this. And I'm not signing any forms or giving you any money."

She laughed, " That's fine, I don't need your money, I just need your time."

" Okay," Neville nodded, " Sounds fair enough."

They were now inside the main hallway, where Neville removed his shoes and looked at Death expectantly to do so as well. She grinned and knelt on the floor and unlaced her knee-high boots. Then she lined them up evenly on the wall before standing up and stretching her arms thoughtfully. He now noticed she wore fishnets and she had a large silver ankh around her neck.

" You…" Neville paused, " Never mind."

Death walked first into the kitchen. She sat down at the table and Neville sat opposite her.

" This is a long story, it dates far into your ancestors, Neville, and a curse that is held to your name," Death explained, " And your grandmother plays a rather interesting role, as do your parents."

" Then please explain right now before I go nuts!"

" Very well," She smiled and began.

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Author's Note: I know this story will stray rather far from the original Sandman, I want Death to be almost a separate entity, and in this story this will just deal with death, the afterlife, and what Neville's family had to do with it. I understand there might be some errors here and there, for I'll try to avoid bringing the rest of the Sandman world into this story, for it would be just far too difficult. This will be, in a sense, more of a story like **Death: The High Cost of Living **and **The Time of Your Life**. Plus infringing on anything Neil Gaiman has created is difficult, since my level of writing and brain-thought is nowhere near his, and hence I pretty much stink in comparison.


	2. Fate Stapling

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Author's Note: Many depressing things have happened to me in the two weeks since I posted this, I'm sorry that this chapter is so horribly delayed. Meanwhile I have posted a hilarious and yet tragic story called "Letters", which I heavily recommend if you like Draco and enjoy seeing H/Hr appear in tales.

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Chapter Two

Death leaned backwards in her seat and smiled demurely, " Once every few years – though a rather large span of time for you mortals – I am able to take human form and live among humans for a day."

Neville nodded absently, unsure of where Death was going with this.

" Obviously I had to see this wizard world for myself," Death grinned even wider, " And it was lovely. A man bought me a butter beer and then I went to Gringotts to see the fabled banking vaults. It was all so… so _grand_. Of course, it was before Voldemort had even existed, much before."

" What about my ancestors?" Neville wanted to know.

Death nodded, " Right, I'll try not to stray too much from the topic."

" Please do," Neville whispered hoarsely, his eyes widening as he thought about the possibilities of what his ancestors could have been up to.

" Would you mind if I put on your radio?" Death exclaimed suddenly, reaching out and twiddling the radio controls before Neville could even reply, " You have a Muggle radio here, even though you shouldn't. You're not Muggles. Why is it here?" Death stopped at a station as the hauntingly beautiful music of The Cure filled the room, ("_into the sea, you and me…_").

" My grandmother said she got it as a gift," Neville said impatiently, " Why are you stalling?"

Death stuck out her tongue playfully and said, " Alright, I'll talk. I can't possibly combat your negotiating skills."

Neville couldn't help but smile. He stood and began to prepare tea and Death talked.

" When I stayed for a day in the wizarding world I became acquainted with an ancestor of yours. A woman, in fact," Death smiled, " She was a gypsy woman, a fortune teller. Did you know that about your ancestors?"

" No," Neville admitted.

" While she was a gypsy, her spouse was a Longbottom though. So, actually, she was just married into your family line. However, she was a fortune teller," Death twirled out a pack of fortune telling cards as she spoke and then showed them to Neville, " She'd use cards like these, except not entirely as new-fashioned. They were rather pretty cards, she painted them herself and cut them out. Uneven edges, but beautiful cards, really."

Neville nodded her on.

" She wanted to predict my future," Death smiled devilishly, " And so I let her. And she told me that my whole entire life kept showing up as the death card, over and over, no matter how well she mixed the deck. It would always be that one card, the tall skeleton with a scythe."

" Makes sense," Neville murmured.

" I told her nothing, but she insisted on knowing my secrets," Death leaned back in the chair and glanced out the window at something in the distance, " Did they bury her out there? It would help if we went out to her grave."

" I don't know, there's graves out there of Longbottoms from even the 1600's," Neville admitted, " This house is a total relic."

" Let's step outside then," Death turned the radio off, " I will miss the music, but it will help to be at the grave."

" Alright," Neville led Death out of his house and back towards the graveyard. Death talked the whole time.

" The Gypsy woman and I talked for hours, about life, about our views on things. She told me about your family line. Then, suddenly, she told me she had lied in her fortune-telling work."

" Lied?" Neville wondered.

" Yes," Death looked at him, her eyes aflame with delight, " And so she decided fate, in a way, because she told a handsome young man he would marry her. And he felt it was his future, so he molded his life so that he _did_ fall in love with the fortuneteller, believing that this was what fate intended. How ironic, that it was a human deciding their own fate after all, and a fortune teller, at that! Someone who believed that their future was set and decided in stone!"

" Oh," Neville's funny bone didn't exactly feel tickled by this. He felt his ears redden, though, "So she manipulated a Longbottom into wedding her?"

" If you want to see her as a villain, yes," Death twirled around and walked backwards, looking at him, her thin white arms swinging at her sides, " she did manipulate herself into a husband. After she confessed it to me, I knew that there was something gone wrong in this. She had bent fate, a human had bent fate on her own. Even small things like these could forever alter the fabric of time. The future was changed beyond repair."

Neville frowned, " So what does this mean?"

" Your family line had been changed entirely by accident through manipulation of fate," Death continued, seeing Neville's puzzlement, " And that means that the existence of all the children from that family afterward was also… false. Against what fate had planned."

" So my existence has no meaning?" Neville said finally.

" No," She said, " Everything has a meaning. It is simply a mistake."

" Oh. What does this all have to do with my grandmother?" Neville demanded.

" She knew," Death said, " She herself had dabbled with fortune telling. And she tried to read her fortune, and she saw that there was no future for her. It was blank. She was puzzled, so she read your fortune. Remember? You were seven."

" Yes," Neville said finally, " She told me that there was something wrong with the cards, that even though all the cards had pictures, she kept taking out a blank card whenever she wanted my future."

" That's because fate has not decided your family at all," Death said, " Your family has decided fate."

Neville blinked, " I get it now."

" But since your grandmother became aware of this all, she had become suspicious. She knew that there was an error in fate, that something had gone awry. She knew that somehow her ancestors had been able to formulate their own future, to make up their own fate."

" Doesn't this happen to others as well?" Neville demanded, " Why my family?"

" Because your grandmother figured it out," Death said, " And ever further, she had made contact with some of my siblings. And eventually with me," Death pointed out, " She became aware of the forces that ran and balanced the universe, and she realized that your family had somehow stepped outside that balance. It wouldn't have been a problem, but once she discovered it, she became intrigued as to whether she even existed. Whether the Longbottom family had, at some point, created a separate universe. Wherein they made a new world, a whole new future for the universe, just because they took something out of order and stopped the natural chain of events of fate from happening. She became too curious, she became too involved."

" I see," Neville said finally.

" She became so involved as to the point that she began talking to your parents about it. She tried to tell them but they became certain that your grandmother was crazy. Things were going awry, your family was beginning to fall apart. It had stapled fate together in a way that it worked to create this future, and now the future just didn't work. It had jammed in its own machinery," Death sighed thoughtfully, " Can you imagine how distressing it would be, to feel that your entire existence is simply a mistake? An error of fate?"

" Yes," Neville breathed out, " That's what I'm beginning to feel."

" Well, your grandmother's discoveries were putting a strain on all of us – my siblings and I. For you see, even mistakes in fate are intended by fate. Perhaps its hard to grasp how fate works, even I'm not quite sure. I do know, however, that Destiny knows much about it," Death took a deep breath and smiled, " My throat hurts. Ah, here we are, the grave of that one fate-bending gypsy."

Neville knelt beside it, " So my grandmother was straining fate, existence too far? She was making too much a dent in the universe because of her weighted theories?"

" Yes," Death said, " And I was forced to bend fate farther and to take her before it was time. Before, however, Delirium had to assure that your parents would not be able to carry on what your grandmother preached."

" They ended up in St. Mungo's…" Neville breathed, " I thought that was because of an Unforgivable curse…"

" Fate had to be adjusted so that someone was taken out of their place and used the Unforgivable curse on your parents. It was not meant to happen, but suddenly fate was being jerked around and readjusted, sewn and patched over itself," Death explained.

" So my family ended up making a great stir in the great cosmic lineup," Neville said, " And finally you were forced to take my grandmother."

" Yes," Death said, " But it was a grave mistake."

" Why?" Neville asked.

" Because your grandmother would have led to a very wonderful future for you," Death said, " I don't want to tell you what your fate is, but it is quite different without your grandmother. By taking your grandmother away, I have altered fate. I have not done my job. My job is to comply with fate and to take people when it is time. When it is a force… a force like Death, or Dream… altering fate… it's…" Death took a shuddering breath, " … almost unforgivably wrong. We then assume more control than we can handle. We then feel the power of altering the world. It… it's not good."

Neville nodded absently and brushed the dirt off the tombstone.

" So, I have come to you," Death smiled after saying this, her teeth shiny and white, " and I hope you will agree that fate should not be bent any farther. You now know about this, and you must now work with me to get your grandmother back. We cannot let fate be bent any further."

" How do we bring back the dead?" Neville asked, " This is all becoming so confusing."

" Just think of it this way. Fate can be altered so that the future is changed forever. Why can we not change fate so that the past is forever altered?" Death grinned wisely.

" How do we do that?" Neville asked.

" Time travel."

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Author's Note: This is becoming complex! I hope this isn't too confusing. Not anymore confusing than some of the theories the real Sandman story presents the readers, anyway. Now Neville is faced with a choice – he can continue altering fate, living and never seeing the future he was meant to have; **_or _**he can adjust fate once and for all, go far back in time and fix it so that his grandmother is not taken before her time… and then somehow talk her into keeping her discoveries about fate silent. Which path will he choose? Review, and find out.


	3. A Branching Path

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Author's Note: "Letters" has been removed; I realized I didn't even like the story that much, upon rereading it. Plus I got a flame in the first hour it was up. I will follow this story with another Draco story though.

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Chapter Three

" How far back in time _are_ we going?" Neville asked nervously, staring at the grave, the sparse weeds scattered on it both tragic and beautiful. He hadn't had time to clean up the graves, nor had anyone else. It appears that once you die, you remain alive until people forget you. The people here were surely dead.

" We will have to see how far back we have to go," Death explained simply. She smiled secretively and added, " We'll start by going back to your grandmother's death and stopping it, and then see if that changes things any."

" But wouldn't that leave us back where we started? With my grandmother disturbing fate and causing headaches for everyone?" Neville asked.

" There's only one way to find out. Maybe if we convince her well enough that we've seen the future, and its best for her and for you to accept your fates?"

" That sounds sketchy," Neville admitted, " Hard to believe, too."

Death looked troubled, " If I go all the way back to the past and make sure the fortune teller doesn't wed the Longbottom male, then a large part of you would be gone, if not all of you. The future would be absolutely different for your family."

Neville looked at her nervously, unsure of what sort of thaumaturgy he should be expecting. Finally, he asked, sheepishly, " So we'll be experimenting around? Rewinding and then fast forwarding across the tape of time?"

" Don't tell me you're not up to it all of a sudden?" She put her hands on her hips.

He scratched the back of his head nervously, " Can't you tell me what my future was _supposed _to be? So that I could figure out if its worth pursuing?"

" I can't do that," Death said, " Because it wouldn't be the unknown mysterious future, it would be the known present but delayed."

" Oh."

" Isn't the future itself worth pursuing?" She questioned.

" Either way I'll have a future though," Neville said, " And quite honestly, the world is just fine the way it is. I'm just Neville Longbottom, I wasn't meant for anything great. Hermione was, perhaps, and certainly Harry Potter. Whatever my future is, it doesn't quite matter. I'm ready for anything right about now."

" Do you really value your life so little?" Death demanded, " You only get one shot at life, you know."

Neville was silent though. He didn't know how to respond, really; how could he know how to respond? It had been so long since he had last really thought about his life as something going in a particular direction! He had long since realized that he was a clumsy lad. His face was ordinary, not ugly but certainly not handsome either. Pallid skin, mousy hair, ordinary features, a jaw that didn't have any personality to it. Past the reflection in the mirror was his personality – his nerves were frayed, he was used to being ridiculed and embarrassed in front of everyone daily. He had grown to rely solely on himself since childhood because his parents weren't around, his friends didn't quite treat him in the same extent as they did one another, and his grandmother had always been on the absentminded side. He had nearly raised himself, with his grandmother's stern and mature hand guiding him. He wasn't even twenty yet, but he felt his life was already so dull that nothing promising seemed on the horizon.

And then came this proposition.

This life, as he knew it, could have been different. Dare he even think that it could have been splendidly better? There was something in his future that was very precious and wonderful. A jewel of a future to stand out from the barren rocks and coals of his past. Somewhere in the fabric of time his own future had been stitched over due to the tampering his relatives had caused on the order of fate. So perhaps it was a minimal effect; Neville lost his grandmother, a key player in whatever it was that would make his future so grand. Two people's lives had been changed – his future had been dulled down from the original jewel to yet another stone on the path; his grandmother was dead. She had been old and it was nearly time for her anyway, and Neville…

Neville couldn't think of what he really had to look forwards to. He wasn't skilled in any way, he certainly had no specific talents or key features that made him stand out in any way. His stomach turned as he looked at Death with a distressed expression on his face.

" Don't tell me what I think you're about to tell me," She sank to the ground again in front of the grave. A steadier rain was beginning and her skin looked even paler, nearly gray, in the mist of water around them suddenly.

Neville pressed his lips together, unsure of what to say then.

Death plucked at the ankh around her neck, the symbol for eternal life, an ironic symbol on Death herself. Slowly she twirled the ankh between her fingers and a small dent appeared in the ground of the grave. It was comparable to a hole that would be made in the ground if a medium-sized rock were to be pulled out of some compact soil.

" What are you doing?" Neville wondered aloud.

" I know you don't mean that," Death said definitively, her fingers digging into the dent. She spread them apart and a blinding white light poured out from the hole, encompassing them both. Suddenly all he could hear was Death talking on, and her ankh, now stark black and the single thing that he could see out than a field of white stretching in each direction, " Nobody knows just how much they are missing out on life until they see the other polar end. Until they see death."

" But didn't I already see you?" Neville didn't quite comprehend at first, then felt his ears redden in embarrassment, " Oh, of course, I see…"

The white whirled around him, even though he couldn't see it, it made the sound of something rubbing around past him, like when you whip some satin sheets off a bed. The satin-smooth feel was over his skin, rubbing past him, and suddenly he found himself sitting beside the grave again, on the ground, Death standing beside him. Only it was early spring, and he knew that time had been shifted backwards.

Neville looked at Death, surprised, then turned to see his grandmother walking up the lawn towards him, supported with a cane. Neville felt tears spring to his eyes instantly, " Grandmother," He said, standing up. He looked at Death, his eyebrows raised, asking silently, _What am I supposed to do?_

Death looked at his Grandmother matter-of-factly and said, " We've come to fix fate."

**Boom.**

Just like that, Death had thrown the cards on the table. Neville was taken aback. _Is this what they mean about Death striking in most unexpected ways?_, he thought.

" What do you mean?" Neville's Grandmother straightened up slightly, taken aback as well.

" I thought we would go about it _gently_, not wallop her in the face with it!" Neville exclaimed to Death, " Grandmother, we…"

" We've come to fix an error in time," Death cut him off, looking very serious suddenly. Then, she lightened up again, smiling, " We don't have time to fool around with it, anyway. Mrs. Longbottom, you are aware that you have witnessed a manipulation of fate?"

Mrs. Longbottom stared at her blankly for a second, then nodded, " Are… are you here to fix it?"

Neville felt his stomach sink. _My own grandmother! I always thought she was a bit hard to believe things, and here she is - completely believes everything, hook, line, and sinker,_ Neville thought, his eyebrows raising.

Death nodded, " Actually, we would like it if you didn't make a big deal out of it. You see, you… you raised quite an uproar about it, and that's what _really_ screwed fate up. Even when fate is altered, you can still argue it was fate to do so. Fate is a pliable thing, in perspective," Death looked at Neville, " But by making such an uproar about how your family's fate had been changed, you've averted too much attention to it. By focusing on the fact that your fate really _was_ wrong, you made my sisters and brothers work extra hard to cover. The only mistake is that you acknowledged the mistake."

" So… so I suppose it was intended after all?" Mrs. Longbottom said, her eyebrows knitted.

" Yes… and I've come early to stop you and to make sure that you, simply, live with the change in fate. It's for the best, especially since we had to… dispose of you… to cover, before. If you know what I mean," Death smiled nervously.

Mrs. Longbottom nodded, ashen.

Neville looked at his grandmother incredulously, " Grandmum…"

Mrs. Longbottom asked Death, almost ignoring her grandson, " Did I put my grandson in danger in the future? Did I change anything?"

Death looked sad, " I don't really know. Your grandson had a rather impressive fate otherwise. You see, it … well, I can't say, but it's very impressive. Entirely different, and all."

Neville felt a stinging pain inside of him, " How do you even know it was meant to be changed around like that? And there's not much that we can change by going back a year and letting my grandmother live."

Death looked at him seriously, " Well, for one thing, I think we might need your grandmother to go further back in the past and fix things. And once we do, I'll let you return to your lives in the future, after giving you a quick fast forward to see how it changed."

" You mean we will change everything?" Mrs. Longbottom asked, barely audible.

Death nodded, " It's the only way. Fate's been spun around too much, and when Destiny and I figured out just how different the Longbottom future was…" She stopped and stared at them, " Hey, let's go and take care of the past then!"

" Now?" Neville looked nervous, " But this will change everything."

" If you don't like it…" Death smiled, " Destiny told me I could let you have the option of changing everything back to the way it was. Your grandmother gone, fate forever changed, the world just a bit different."

" Well… when you put it that way…" Neville said.

" Neville," His grandmother scolded, " Don't be silly, this is an opportunity."

" But I don't know how different it will be," Neville complained, " I'm scared to know. How can I choose between… _lives_? What if this is the one I was meant to have? What if fate did intend for things to happen like this?"

Death smiled, " Well, if you believe that fate chose all this, wouldn't you say that whatever your choice will be now, it was decided by fate anyway, and whichever life you prefer would have been chosen by fate?"

Neville blinked, confused.

Death smirked, " I talked about it before. Perhaps it was fate after all to make your grandmother make such a stirrup. Perhaps it was your old, predestined fate that was wrong. It did, after all, drastically change the fate of Harry Potter."

She looked concerned suddenly, realizing she had slipped something very, very revealing out.

Neville's face changed, too, " Let me see my other life then."

****

Author's Note: Neville's very-different future seems to have something to do with Harry Potter then. His fate, if he chooses it, will drastically change Harry's, but make his life completely different, if not better. Or, he could simply live with the fact that his fate was a bit jumbled somewhere along the way, and go back to being a young, single male in a dead end job, with all his most beloved, nearest family dead or in St. Mungo's. Which path will he choose? Review, and find out.


	4. Story Posteponement Notice

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Story Postponement Notice

I am very sorry to do this, but I think this story is just not ready yet for me to keep writing it. Sometimes it just so happens that, halfway into a story, I lose interest in it entirely for a few months, and then I pick it up again. Therefore, I am posting this to say that this story isn't lost entirely, or forgotten, but put on postponement for a long time. I have had a few great ideas for stories and I plan to carry them out first, because I would rather write about a new, and fun idea than struggle with a story that I have grown bored or disenchanted with. I still like this story, I'm simply at loss of ideas and my mind has grown too crowded with new, better story ideas. I will pick this story up later, once I get some other, less patient ideas out; or, if for some reason, a lot of people start showing interest in this story. Otherwise, I'm afraid this story will have to be put on hold until I'm ready to at least meet my expectations of it halfway. Thank you kindly and I'm very, very sorry. But now I want to do something with Harry and Hermione, or another Draco and Ginny one.


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